


Deep Holes in the Ice

by literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte



Category: Everyman HYBRID
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Major Original Character(s), Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), POV Original Character, Surreal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 07:51:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2540087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte/pseuds/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“There has been some speculation that HABIT is a demon, an angel, a monster, a ghost or possessing force. Little is known about who or what exactly HABIT is...HABIT began implying that he had been, perhaps through possession, several of the world's worst serial killers and villains...He also began posting first hand stories of modern encounters that he has had with victims.” (from the everymanHYBRID wiki)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deep Holes in the Ice

The storm hit a week earlier than expected, while they were loading the last of their luggage on the truck.

“Christ. 15 percent chance of snow, my ass!” Tom glared at the heavy rainclouds advancing towards the cabin. He sniffed, and his thick eyebrows mashed together into a singular mass of hair above his tiny eyes, as if personally offended by the crisp smell of the oncoming weather. “No snow chains, no generator. Fucking cheapskates running this place, I tell you.”

Bruce, holding up the broken garage door with both hands, sighed in agreement. 

“I'll go call the rangers before the phones go down, and tell them – with this weather, there's no way we'll make it back in time. We're gonna stay put, where there's warm beds and a heater,” Tom said. 

He climbed off the back end of the truck in a rush, but faltered and reached for the cabinets. He rummaged through the empty shelves, opening and closing them. He shuffled through papers and still didn't find what he was looking for. His eyebrows merged again, and he turned towards Bruce to say, “Nothing! Nothing useful.”

Bruce sighed again, fidgeting. “Yeah, can I shut the door now?”

“Oh, yeah. No use packing up anything more, with that fucking storm on its way. Might as well head back inside.”

One of the shovels fell to the floor with a loud clatter, and both of them jumped.

\------

Tom was a heavy-set white man in his late fourties with a bad back that made the work harder than it could be, but the benefits were good and the pay was decent. His patience ran as thin as his balding hair, and he never opened his eyes all the way, instead squashing his eyebrows to make expressions.

His nose reminded Bruce of a rabbit, quivering at the slightest word, and he acted much like a rabbit, as well.

Bruce was convinced Tom's back problems were due to the perpetual chip on his shoulder, but said nothing. Bruce, a scrawny black college boy, was always fiddling or twitching, never quite calm. His frantic eyes blinked only when he sneezed, flinched, or slept.

He had a habit of pacing around at all hours, sitting down only to stand back up again.

\-----

Two days later the snow was up to their knees. The electricity somehow struggled on. The lights flickered and the phones went out but they weren't in complete darkness, yet.

The radios worked only when the rangers answered, and Tom didn't make contact with anyone until the morning of the third day.

“Yes? Hello? This is Tom, and – hello? Hello? Can you hear me?” He kept on like that, barking into the radio, for hours.

Someone finally responded, but they didn't say much. “The storm will only last for another day, so we'll contact you tomorrow and tell you if it's safe to leave or not.”

The storm did not last for just another day. Outside the cabin, the winds howled and rattled the windows. The snow built up and Bruce paced back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Sometimes he disappeared into the garage. The storm screamed, and screamed, and screamed, and both Tom and Bruce knew they would have work next spring again.

\-----

“So, why'd you take the job?” Tom asked one evening as he hovered around the radio, waiting for the rangers to give them the clear.

Bruce's stare flickered from Tom and then to the wall. “We've...we've worked together three years, Tom."

Tom waved his hand. "I've never asked you this before. We never talk."

"Uh. You know...school loans. College debt. You know.” He rolled his shoulders. “Need the money.”

The fourth day passed by, and the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh – eventually a whole week had gone by without any word from the rangers and Tom sat on his chair by the radio, distastefully looking out at the falling snow. “Doesn't look like it's gonna slow down,” he said to the frosted glass.

Around the fifteenth day Tom decided that, despite the storm, he might as well get back to work.

“They'll pay us overtime for this, won't they?” Tom nodded to himself. “And we can complain about working conditions or something, and threaten to sue...”

“It's freezing out there,” Bruce pointed out. But Tom threw on his coat and boots, and worked until evening in the thick of the storm. He stayed close to the house, coming in every other hour to piss or sit by the heater. He made a pot of coffee and _tut-tut-tutt_ ed at the sight of Bruce on the couch, and then vanished back outside with a shovel in hand.

“You'll get yourself sick, and then I'll get sick, and we'll both be sick and miserable, trapped in this place,” Bruce mumbled to the closed door. His restless hands never quite reached for the radio, but his frantic eyes watched Tom come and go from his position by it.

When it got too dark out to see, Tom stowed his shovel in the garage and collapsed on his bed, shaking.

“So many of them, in those holes,” he whispered, voice hoarse and face pressed against his pillow. “It's like...their eyes, those eyes just seem so alive. It's hell.”

“Go to sleep,” Bruce said from his bed.

Tom grumbled, eyebrows pressed into an eyebrow, and passed out.

\-----

He found a hundred or so of them that day.

The deep holes through the snow almost made a trench around the left side of the cabin.

The pits refilled overnight.

Deep holes could never go deep enough.

\-----

Tom put his weight down on his foot and the shovel bit through the cold ice to the colder earth. He sucked in air sharp through his teeth as he pushed down the shovel again and lifted out another hard block of ice.

He didn't notice the sound of snow crunching behind him. 

“Don't you ever wonder where they come from?”

Tom whipped around, letting go of his shovel so it dropped into the shallow ditch besides him, and winced.

Bruce watched him as he straightened his back. “How many _times_ do I have to tell you not to sneak up -”

Tom stopped when he noticed the shivering. The wild, violent shivering of Bruce's whole body. Bruce didn't have on a coat, a hat, or even a scarf – he stood there barefoot in nothing but a T-shirt and jeans as his breath came out in shaky clouds.

“What are you doing out here? Where's your coat?” Tim put his hands on Bruce's shoulders and felt the chills wracking through the boy vibrate up his arm. He shook him. “What the hell do you think you're doing?”

Bruce looked at him, and, for once, he looked...tired. He blinked slowly, as if he, too, was surprised by the change.

He lifted his arm up, and his fingers were clinging into the wet fur of some animal, too disfigured to distinguish. His nose flared.

“Let's get you the hell back inside,” Tom prompted, but Bruce wouldn't budge.

“Don't you ever wonder where the rabbits come from?”

\-----

Days passed. The radio was silent. Tom kept digging.

The storm screamed, and screamed.

Bruce sprawled across the couch and watched the dust motes in the air.

"I don't have frostbite," he said to them. He curled his fingers, and his unscathed toes.

His body had been so blue, he had almost been purple.

\-----

"What day is it?"

Tom blew over his coffee. "Stop asking so many questions."

Bruce jiggled his leg under the table, and tapped his fingers on top. "I don't know what I did yesterday."

"Dig holes, probably."

"Have the rangers called?"

"Didn't you hear what I said about questions?" Tom let out a dejected, hard laugh and shook his head.

"Do they know what we're doing here?"

Tom glanced at the radio. "No, the rangers don't know about the damn holes. Now stop talking about them." 

\-----

Early one morning, Tom woke up to the smell of meat. He rolled over, half-awake, grunting and telling Bruce to stop yelling in his sleep. 

There was a loud banging noise on the roof, followed by a sound like tires on a wet road. The windows shook as the banging continued. Tom tore his eyes open.

Bruce stood next to the window. His hands shook. In the darkness, Tom couldn't tell if it was dirty snow on his clothes, or something else entirely.

“God, what's that sound?” Tom groaned.

“It's not snowing anymore,” Bruce said.

Tom looked out the window as the body of a rabbit slid down the glass. The banging sped up; the entire cabin shook.

“It's not snowing anymore,” he repeated. “It's not snowing.”

\-----

The ice made a noise like a _snap_ as the shovel broke through.

Deep holes through the snow.

Pits that refill overnight.

Deep holes could never go deep enough.


End file.
